The Calm before the Storm

Okay, so Valve will be hitting us with two class updates simultaneously: Sniper and Spy. Sneaky devils, those Valve guys.

Release date of the updates is supposed to be Friday, the 21st. I wonder if there will be another update today, there are still a few loose ends.Never mind, that leaves us with enough time to continue speculating on the effects, pros and cons of the new toys. And Valve gave us much room for speculation, didn’t they? While with each update the weapons get a bit more exotic I find Valve’s descriptions of the weapons and their specifications more and more nebulous.

I don’t really complain about that, since we will find it all out soon enough. I just can’t help but wonder if these evil buggers are doing this on purpose, sitting in their offices and laughing their asses off when the speculations start spinning out of control and manifest in the weirdest scenarios.

So let’s have a quick summary:

Right now we have for the sniper:The Huntsman: Medium range weapon with short charging time. Unknown if it will have trajectory. Pins dead and dying players on walls (whatever “dying” might imply here, and I wonder how close a hit player must be to a wall to get pinned).The Razorback: Electrified Shield, apparently protecting only against backstabbing spies once (breaks on stab).Unknown if it offers any other protection, unknown how it affects the backstabbing spy (besides disabling the knife for an unknown amount of time), unknown how the sniper can resupply the razorback.Jarate: A Jar of Piss which can be thrown. Its splattered content can affect multiple players. Enemy players will take 35% more damage for an unspecified period of time. It shorts out Spies’ cloaking device and it extinguishs fire on teammates.Unknown if it also affects the cloak of friendly spies (which would make that a double edged sword).IMHO the most interesting weapon with its capabilities to interact and help the team.

And for the spy:The Dead Ringer: Creates a fake dead body while automatically cloaking the spy for 8 seconds. Sounds like an updated version of TFC’s feint ability Lots of open questions, including what happens if the spy’s on fire, how quickly the Dead Ringer recharges (if it has to at all) and what happens around sentries (the Dead Ringer will provide a “free” kill in sentry range).The Cloak-and-Dagger: Permanent invisibility which is powered by the spy standing still. Unknown if the cloak drains as quickly as normal while moving and how fast it recharges when standing still.The Ambassador: High accuracy Colt which requires a cool down period between shots.This is the weapon which confuses me the most, since I don’t understand the necessity to give the spy a high accurcy weapon.

But the two biggest unknowns are: What will these new items be the alternative to? Will they be alternatives at all (because it’s hard to imagine what the Dead Ringer and Cloak-and-Dagger should replace). I assume it’s more probable that some of these items will in some way be featured in connection with the new backpack inventory (Why else would Valve have integrated that new feature into TF2 already?).

And how will players be able to obtain these new items? Since Valve promised to forge new paths in making new items available (and no longer couple those on achievements) I assume they will do so with the sniper-and-spy update. Hopefully we will get an introduction to the backpack and the new handling of items soon, preferably before the update(s).

On a personal note: While I will try to get my hands on the new items I’ll follow this update with some detached interest, since it concerns the both least played classes for me. I suck as sniper (can’t hit the proverbial broad side of a barn) and fail to be sneaky enough to play spy.

What else will be there?Pipeline: A semi-new game mode featuring a Payload Race. Nice diversion from the basic O vs. D-structure of regular Payload. Hopefully this will teach the TF2 community a bit more about simultaneous Attack and Defense (which so rarely appears to work on CTF maps) Also the first official nighttime map. What is visible so far of the design looks very nice. Can’t wait to play that one.Sawmill and Nucleus: On the bright side, these maps look fantastic. But then again, both are Arena-maps Sigh, life can be so unfair …Sawmill will feature rain weather effect, which will be quite interesting (first time ever weather effect in TF). My personal theory goes that sneaky Valve is once more testing new tools and properties on a small scale before integrating those into a full game, like they did with HL: Lost Coast. I’m also convinced that Portal once started as a test project before it evolved into its own game.So I will be so bold to predict that we will encounter weather effects in HL:E3

No need to promote the awesome "Meet the Spy" video any longer. If you haven’t seen it after all the exposure and discussion it’s your own fault

Agreed, at this point I’m not convinced that the sniper update is off the table (after all, the update pages, along with the new maps, are still there and unchanged).

The Ambassador is a weapon I don’t quite get yet. A high accuracy weapon is an odd choice for a spy (since there are few situations a spy would really need high accuracy). Well, no silly speculations, we will get our hands on it soon enough